Whether you prefer new books or classics, fiction or non-fiction, light reading or the esoteric, and more, let the Lindenhurst Memorial Library adult reference librarians share their favorites with you.

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Monday, October 17, 2016

This novel, written by M.L. Stedman, is set during the
early twentieth century in Western Australia. It is a story of love between a
mother and her child and between romantic partners, and of what happens when
those loves are lost.

Tom
Sherbourne returns as a hero to Australia after World War I but he doesn’t feel
like one. Shell-shocked, he only can think of the men that were lost. He takes
a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote place where the supply
boat only comes once every three months and Tom gets occasional shore leaves at
the mainland. Yet he will meet and fall in love with Isabel; marrying her and
returning to Janus Rock together. Happy at first, Isabel and Tom become
increasingly distraught as she suffers two miscarriages and a stillbirth. Soon
afterwards, they hear a baby’s cry from the ocean. A boat with a dead man and a
living infant girl wash up on the shore.

Isabel
begs Tom to let her keep the girl and raise her as their own, saying that she
is a “gift from God”. He reluctantly agrees, forging records to indicate that
Isabel delivered the healthy girl from her recent pregnancy. They name the girl
Lucy.

Tom,
Isabel, and Lucy return to the mainland two years later, discovering that Lucy’s
birth mother resides there and is anguished over the loss of her husband and
child. What to do: own up to their lie or cover up their theft of the child? The
rest of the story plays out, examining moral issues, tragedy, and redemption. A
bittersweet tale of what is loved and lost in our lives.